As per your own link, cargo cult programming is the ritual inclusion of code or program structures that serve no real purpose. This is code that serves no real purpose. I don't have a character threshold. If it were possible to include code or program structures using zero characters, and that code or structure served no purpose, then I'd argue that to be cargo cult too.

This kind of thing is what gives newcomers to Perl the impression that it's full of magical incantations, and they'd be better off using Python. (I grant you that this is a very minor and seemingly insignificant example, but it does all add up!)